At four weeks into homeschooling my son, I’m an expert. LOLOL. Even I couldn’t say that one with a straight face. Truly, even once I have more time under my belt and more experience, I don’t know if I’ll be able to consider myself an “expert”. There is just SO much information out there, it’s incredible. However, what I can share are the few things I’ve learned in this short time:

1. Relax This goes for both me (teacher) and my son. Initially, it’s so exciting to have a blank canvas to paint with curriculum, interests and experiments … all catered just for you. But with great freedom, comes great responsibility. I mean that to say, we can’t do everything. I had three languages on tap as well as typing, guitar and a few other extras. Not that we can’t still do all of those, and maybe even at the same time. But we’re just starting out. So not now. For now, relax.

2. We can actually use the flexibility we’re given. Okay, so the first day we were out at the library a little later than planned, I panicked. Not major, full-on, stressed panic, but a substantially scaled down version. However, the stress was still there. And many experienced homeschool moms may laugh, but I got home and realized, we can just push everything back a half an hour, and finish something tomorrow. And that will be okay. And then I got even more brazen and realized, it’s gorgeous outside and not as hot in the morning, so we can go to the park and then come home and do school. And that’s okay. Baby steps for me. Flexibility is definitely a good thing.

3. You really can learn doing housework. I joked about this previously, if not somewhat skeptically. But as we cleaned up on Friday preparing for houseguests, my son had a certain number of bins in his playroom where toys needed to fit. He needed to find out how many of each item could go in each bin. Math! We also got into a discussion about something we’d studied earlier in the week from Science, which bled into history and ended at Geography, with an online search. We were studying! And cleaning! And learning. Cool.

I’ve still got my subjects covered and am still continuing in my very methodical, organized way. I’m just learning where I can loosen the reigns, go with the flow, and enjoy the journey. Now check back with me in a few weeks and see if I’m still flowing. 😉